I think every missionary in an unreached country, especially those with animistic rituals, needs to know how to do an exorcism. It's not something you're usually taught to do in church, but it'll come in handy when needed, so I will write a plain step-by-step manual later for what has worked for me so far.
But first, some background.
This was part of our bible study tonight on Matthew 9. It struck me that this was the summary of the ministry of Jesus that Matthew 9 had been giving glimpses of earlier - a ministry that included this:
It reminded me of something that stood out to me during my last class on spiritual warfare - that Matthew tended to just clump exorcisms as part of the healing ministry of Jesus. It showed how commonplace it was for Jesus to cast out demons, and also that there were probably a lot to be cast out, including ones causing illness. Yet when we read that passage about the harvest being great, normally I think of it as applying to evangelism; that we need more missionaries. But in the whole context, Jesus was sharing the Gospel, healing and casting out demons. He pitied the people because they had spiritual and physical problems, and as one person in my bible study pointed out; when he looked at the fields to be harvested, in that chapter it was not just an unreached village waiting to hear the Gospel, it was the paralyzed, the sinner, the sick, the dead, and the demon possessed.
So now, as we are to be more like Christ and to carry on the ministry of Jesus, then should we not also be sharing the Good News, healing the sick and casting out demons? It was pointed out to me in my class that we are reasonably comfortable with the first two, but usually prefer to ignore the latter. Yet if you make some quick calculations, let's say Jesus only cast out one demon a day (as Matthew seems to be trying to give us a snapshot of Jesus' ministry so it must have been a regular enough part of it); then in his 3 years of ministry, he then may have cast out over 1,000 demons, not to mention possible multiple castings like the legion out of the man at the Gerasene tombs. So why should we ignore it today?
Back to bible study, my friend was sharing about how he had visited a guesthouse in Mae Hong Son where a demon had been banging around in the roof all night and he couldn't sleep. He even had recorded the sound of it on his phone. Previous occupants of that room had also mentioned it to the guesthouse owner. It sounded like metal banging, but the roof was all timber and nothing was up there. He came back to Chaingmai, but the spirit had followed him and was banging in the roof of his home now. Every creak and bang was causing him fear, and he was exhausted from lack of sleep.
When he spoke to his Thai neighbours and landlord, they had a name for that type of spirit. Seems it is a common affliction, but I felt outraged that it dared to bother my friend, who is a Christian.
So we went over to exorcise it. Keep in mind this is only the second time that I have ever done it, but it seems to work, so I'm sharing it with you, because I hate seeing people, especially Christians left captive and afflicted. So finally I come to the steps, here they are:
1. Pray and declare out loud the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. God is the creator of everything on heaven and earth, the seen and the unseen, and He certainly has the power over this spirit.
2. Ask God to bring to mind any sin or thing that needs to be dealt with. If something comes up, repent and deal with it. Everyone in the room should do it, usually on their own, but sometimes people need to confess out loud.
3. Get some oil and anoint the corners of the room, while praying over it declaring that this is now holy ground and part of the Kingdom of God so the enemy has no power in it. I tend to claim that part about everywhere we place our feet becoming part of the Kingdom of God (originally applied to Joshua in Joshua 1:3). Basically, you're consecrating the place to God. No, I don't know if the actual oil is necessary but we as humans also like rituals and visual signs for our faith, so I do it. If you don't have oil, I'm sure God will listen and act just the same.
4. Have communion together. This was taught to me the first time I had to do an exorcism...I was a teenager who knew nothing about it but a friend was in trouble and I had 10 mins on the phone downloading Spiritual Warfare 101 from another friend whose parents were involved in that ministry as I walked to my troubled friends' house. Basically they said exorcism is all about declaring that Christ is Lord, and communion is one of our strongest symbols of that because it is the body and blood of Christ, the ultimate sacrifice that conquered all. So we had communion with chips and ice tea (or last time, coke). There's often no time to hunt up some grape juice/wine and wafers, but God understands.
5. Clean out the house of items that may have bad spiritual ties. No you do not have to toss out everything. Both times that I've done it, God has brought a very specific newly acquired item to the owner's mind, and it's been confirmed by their significant other. So just toss it out.
6. Command evil spirit to leave in the name of Jesus. This last time, while the others were praying, I addressed it directly saying, "Spirit of fear, or whatever is banging around in my friend's roof, I command you to leave in the name of Jesus. You have no power to be here as he is a child of God, so go now. Take any other minions or whatever you may have brought with you and leave this house immediately." Or something of that sort. As I was speaking, I could feel my tongue turn to lead and I stumbled on my words and my mind blanked temporarily, and then I thought 'oh no you don't!' and kept going. The hairs on my arms stood up and I felt a chilly prickle. As I continued to command it to leave in the name of Jesus, the prickling subsided, and until I could say reasonable confidently, "It is gone."
So that's it, I know the bible mentions some need fasting and prayer, so that may come up. It also is better I think to do this with a group of believers. Also, both times it has been a demon afflicting them from the outside - banging around, and in the first time when I was a teen, holding my friend down physically at night; but they were not manifesting or showing any form of possession. I think with those, it would require some deeper healing perhaps, so these steps are simply for an on-the-spot exorcism of a house. Hope it helps you, and remember - Jesus is Lord and all authority is his (and so indirectly, ours).
But first, some background.
Jesus traveled through all the cities and villages of that area, teaching in the synagogues and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom. And wherever he went, he healed people of every sort of disease and illness. He felt great pity for the crowds that came, because their problems were so great and they didn't know where to go for help. They were like sheep without a shepherd. He said to his disciples, "The harvest is so great but the workers are so few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send out more workers for his fields." - Matthew 9:35-38 (NLT)
This was part of our bible study tonight on Matthew 9. It struck me that this was the summary of the ministry of Jesus that Matthew 9 had been giving glimpses of earlier - a ministry that included this:
When they left, some people brought to him a man who couldn't speak because he was possessed by a demon. So Jesus cast out the demon, and instantly the man could talk. - Matthew 9:32-33 (NLT)
It reminded me of something that stood out to me during my last class on spiritual warfare - that Matthew tended to just clump exorcisms as part of the healing ministry of Jesus. It showed how commonplace it was for Jesus to cast out demons, and also that there were probably a lot to be cast out, including ones causing illness. Yet when we read that passage about the harvest being great, normally I think of it as applying to evangelism; that we need more missionaries. But in the whole context, Jesus was sharing the Gospel, healing and casting out demons. He pitied the people because they had spiritual and physical problems, and as one person in my bible study pointed out; when he looked at the fields to be harvested, in that chapter it was not just an unreached village waiting to hear the Gospel, it was the paralyzed, the sinner, the sick, the dead, and the demon possessed.
So now, as we are to be more like Christ and to carry on the ministry of Jesus, then should we not also be sharing the Good News, healing the sick and casting out demons? It was pointed out to me in my class that we are reasonably comfortable with the first two, but usually prefer to ignore the latter. Yet if you make some quick calculations, let's say Jesus only cast out one demon a day (as Matthew seems to be trying to give us a snapshot of Jesus' ministry so it must have been a regular enough part of it); then in his 3 years of ministry, he then may have cast out over 1,000 demons, not to mention possible multiple castings like the legion out of the man at the Gerasene tombs. So why should we ignore it today?
Back to bible study, my friend was sharing about how he had visited a guesthouse in Mae Hong Son where a demon had been banging around in the roof all night and he couldn't sleep. He even had recorded the sound of it on his phone. Previous occupants of that room had also mentioned it to the guesthouse owner. It sounded like metal banging, but the roof was all timber and nothing was up there. He came back to Chaingmai, but the spirit had followed him and was banging in the roof of his home now. Every creak and bang was causing him fear, and he was exhausted from lack of sleep.
When he spoke to his Thai neighbours and landlord, they had a name for that type of spirit. Seems it is a common affliction, but I felt outraged that it dared to bother my friend, who is a Christian.
So we went over to exorcise it. Keep in mind this is only the second time that I have ever done it, but it seems to work, so I'm sharing it with you, because I hate seeing people, especially Christians left captive and afflicted. So finally I come to the steps, here they are:
1. Pray and declare out loud the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. God is the creator of everything on heaven and earth, the seen and the unseen, and He certainly has the power over this spirit.
2. Ask God to bring to mind any sin or thing that needs to be dealt with. If something comes up, repent and deal with it. Everyone in the room should do it, usually on their own, but sometimes people need to confess out loud.
3. Get some oil and anoint the corners of the room, while praying over it declaring that this is now holy ground and part of the Kingdom of God so the enemy has no power in it. I tend to claim that part about everywhere we place our feet becoming part of the Kingdom of God (originally applied to Joshua in Joshua 1:3). Basically, you're consecrating the place to God. No, I don't know if the actual oil is necessary but we as humans also like rituals and visual signs for our faith, so I do it. If you don't have oil, I'm sure God will listen and act just the same.
4. Have communion together. This was taught to me the first time I had to do an exorcism...I was a teenager who knew nothing about it but a friend was in trouble and I had 10 mins on the phone downloading Spiritual Warfare 101 from another friend whose parents were involved in that ministry as I walked to my troubled friends' house. Basically they said exorcism is all about declaring that Christ is Lord, and communion is one of our strongest symbols of that because it is the body and blood of Christ, the ultimate sacrifice that conquered all. So we had communion with chips and ice tea (or last time, coke). There's often no time to hunt up some grape juice/wine and wafers, but God understands.
5. Clean out the house of items that may have bad spiritual ties. No you do not have to toss out everything. Both times that I've done it, God has brought a very specific newly acquired item to the owner's mind, and it's been confirmed by their significant other. So just toss it out.
6. Command evil spirit to leave in the name of Jesus. This last time, while the others were praying, I addressed it directly saying, "Spirit of fear, or whatever is banging around in my friend's roof, I command you to leave in the name of Jesus. You have no power to be here as he is a child of God, so go now. Take any other minions or whatever you may have brought with you and leave this house immediately." Or something of that sort. As I was speaking, I could feel my tongue turn to lead and I stumbled on my words and my mind blanked temporarily, and then I thought 'oh no you don't!' and kept going. The hairs on my arms stood up and I felt a chilly prickle. As I continued to command it to leave in the name of Jesus, the prickling subsided, and until I could say reasonable confidently, "It is gone."
So that's it, I know the bible mentions some need fasting and prayer, so that may come up. It also is better I think to do this with a group of believers. Also, both times it has been a demon afflicting them from the outside - banging around, and in the first time when I was a teen, holding my friend down physically at night; but they were not manifesting or showing any form of possession. I think with those, it would require some deeper healing perhaps, so these steps are simply for an on-the-spot exorcism of a house. Hope it helps you, and remember - Jesus is Lord and all authority is his (and so indirectly, ours).
Therefore put on the full armor of God,so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. - Ephesians 6:13 (NIV)
